Tim Anderson - Tune in Tokio

It’s this obsession I share with generations of humans before me that makes me feel most connected to my ancient antecedents. Or something. In any case, plunk down a giant statue, building, stone pillar, lighthouse, or fire-breathing monster, and I will buy a ticket, stand in front of it, gawk, and maybe even tear up; if it’s big and famous, I want to see it.

I used to have dreams in which I was standing on the crown of the Statue of Liberty looking out over the city. In the dreams, Lady Liberty did not have her own island. No, she lived in Mid-town. Her spiky crown afforded me a convenient little bridge to the roof of any number of the other city skyscrapers. The wind would rip through my tousled blond hair and push me ever closer to the edge of that tiara as Juice Newton’s “The Sweetest Thing (I’ve Ever Known)” filled my eardrums. I would lift my head towards the sky and spread my arms out like a member of the Von Trapp family. Then usually the vertigo would get to me and I’d lose my balance, plummeting headlong towards the pavement.

As a child, I would visit my aunt and grandmother in Jamestown, New York, every summer, and one of the highlights of the trip was always the frequent drives into the tiny downtown area. To get there, we would have to drive over a bridge connecting the neighborhoods to the city center, and off to the right, on top of a factory building, was a massive, twenty-five-foot statue of a shirtless Indian brave. He stood at attention, one arm by his side, the other lifted high above his head, palm facing the sky. In his palm, also standing at attention, was a big bottle of Stroh’s beer.

I was devoted body and soul to that Indian brave, and I looked forward to seeing him every year. My sister Laurie never cared for him, preferring the much more approachable and friendly looking Mr. Donut figure situated downtown. This meant I didn’t have to share him with anyone. I should note that I didn’t love him only for his massive muscles, his stern and manly expression, and his alluring headdress. It wasn’t his rippled stomach, his tight-fitting calfskin trousers, his bulging pectorals, or his erect, brick-red nipples.

It was that he was damn huge. I was afraid of him and drawn to him at the same time. He sent chills down my back. He was dangerous and unattainable, a perfect object of desire.

Yes, for many of my preteen years, I was in love with a twenty-five-foot statue of a beer-swilling Native American.

Of course, the Indian is only famous in the greater Jamestown area, but since him I’ve seen many big and famous things: Big Ben, the world’s most celebrated gilded phallus; Stonehenge; Seattle’s Space Needle; the Empire State Building; the Metronome in Prague; my own North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras Lighthouse; the seven-foot penis in Amsterdam. Most importantly, I saw Michelangelo’s David in Florence, which turned my knees to Jell-O and gave me the sweats for days. He inspired a euphoria I hadn’t known since my old red friend. But where the Indian stood defensive and defiant, David stands blithe and somnambulant. Where the Indian seemed to forbid anything more than a casually appreciative glance, David the attention whore coaxes you into looking more closely. Where the Indian wore calfskin trousers, David is stark naked. I’d stared at him for what seemed like hours, from every conceivable angle.

So, needless to say, I’m very excited about seeing the next big thing, this so-called Daibutsu, or Great Buddha, and I’m happy to hear that he sits just down the road from us by train, perched cross-legged among the trees in the innermost area of a temple in nearby Kamakura. And while I know the Big Buddha may not excite me in the same way Big Red and Big Dave did (it would be wrong to become aroused by a statue of the Buddha; it would be wrong to become aroused by a statue of the Buddha), he still has sheer size to offer.

“Oh, let’s go! Let’s go!” I demand of my friends at Hangover House. After all, there’s nothing to help a hangover more than stepping out into the white light of morning, hopping a train that weaves and buckles through several tiny towns, and walking a few winding uphill roads to see a big holy tub of bronze.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Julia manages to say without hugging her temples. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Charlie has fallen back asleep leaning against the wall, and Ruth had never come to to begin with, so I figure this sojourn will be a solitary one. That’s OK, I think. I’ll come back the most enlightened one on my floor.

Construction of the Great Buddha was finished in 1252. He’s cast in bronze and weighs nearly 850 tons. Most importantly, my guidebook tells me, he is 11.4 meters tall. He sits out in the open surrounded by the beautiful greenery of Kamakura. It was not always so. He was once housed in a great hall, until 1495 when a tsunami washed it away. So after a good five hundred years of sitting outside, he’s understandably a bit weathered and blotchy. Who wouldn’t be?

The Daibutsu is a stunning sight: a giant figure blissfully hunched in a pose of poetic reflection; a symmetrical, robust giant clad in a loose robe, with lowered eyes and bare feet. He is the picture of serenity. And he is B-I-G. But where David and the Indian had both seemed well aware they were being watched, Buddha, if he knows, doesn’t appear to give a damn. He is in his own world, his massive head slightly lowered, his robe falling open in the center, revealing the midsection of his chest and curved belly, his eyelids hanging low over his shadowed eyes, eyes that might be looking down, might be looking straight at you, might not even be there.

The atmosphere of the temple grounds is serene and reverential. Out-of-towner Japanese folks bow and pray, write out prayer wishes and attach them to the prayer board, and do the ritualistic cleansing of the hands and mouth using the bamboo ladle at the entrance. A few Buddhist Westerners sit off to the side in the lotus position. Children chase each other around the statue.

Meanwhile, I take pictures from all sides, circling him from the left and slowly winding my way around, trying to avoid the speeding kids, capturing every angle of his greatness. As I make my way to the right side, I see a little entryway where you can go inside for a mere twenty yen. There’s no saying no to an offer like that, so I pay my twenty yen, lower my head, and cross the threshold. As soon as I alight, on the first step there in the darkness, I experience an emotional spasm, like when you realize your boyfriend’s birthday was yesterday and you’d completely forgotten. I realize that not only have I found the Buddha with the help of the good Lonely Planet people, but I now stand inside him. I am in the Buddha’s belly. My God, I think, I should be having a real existential experience right now, shouldn’t I? If only I were Buddhist. Were I Catholic and standing at the foot of the giant Jesus in Rio de Janeiro, I’d surely be weeping, crossing myself, and feeling really guilty about what I’d gotten up to at the bar the previous evening. Alas, I haven’t found my particular religious path yet, so my reaction to stone embodiments of the divine is aesthetic and wholly secular. Contemplating the existence of God while gazing at a religious sculpture never leaves me with questions answered, convictions affirmed, or fears assuaged. I may leave wanting to be a better human, but I’m at a loss as to how I go about it.

I will say this, though. Walking around the Great Buddha so many times, examining every curve and swoop of his robe, staring fixedly at the way his hands perfectly meet each other as they lay in his lap, makes me feel even more asymmetrical than usual. Thanks a lot, Buddha.

Though I don’t have a spiritual awakening, we do share a moment, and my hangover feels tons better. Also, I swear, as I exit out around the right side and emerge back around the front, I look up to his mysteriously guarded eyes and they meet mine as he murmurs, “Big enough?”